


All that hooting, and Hollering

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen-ish/slash-ish, M/M, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4950745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl goes still – and for a moment he looks carved from stone – immutable, or alien as a sphinx.   His expression is unchanged. </p><p>Rick saw it the first day they met – when he told Daryl of Merle’s fate – saw it on a dark field while Dale lay at both their feet. He glimpsed the expression again when Daryl wouldn’t give up Merle in the woods, and Rick saw it aimed at himself, the naked relief and love, when Joe and his party stumbled upon them on the way to Terminus.  It’s narrow eyed and a little pissed off.  It’s this side of defiant, and at its very heart, it’s an unwillingness to let go.  Set.  A decision to not change. “You’re my brother.”  Daryl reminds him, angrily</p>
            </blockquote>





	All that hooting, and Hollering

“It was bull, man.  Telling stories about your grand-pop by the fire, laying it on so thick.  Couldn’t tell the horseshit from the lies in that fucking barn…but it all smelt the same.”

Rick blinks.  His sides are still heaving, blood running hot and sticky over his fingertips.  The colt is a spent weight at his right side, used for bludgeoning, not shooting. “Now?” he whispers. His voice cracks at the end, and fuck it hurts, a whole world of pain in his back and thighs. “Your gonna gripe about that _now_?”

“Holding it for the right occasion.” Daryl snatches the kit from him. It’s in Rick’s hands one moment then gone in the next.   His vision blurs at the edges.  There’s a howl wedged deep inside his throat.  Panic claws at him.  “Gimme that,” Daryl says, after the fact. 

 _Carl,_ Rick wants to refute.  He tries to grab it back, _Carlcarl-ohmygod--carl._ “You can’t! Dammit, wait –-“

Daryl doesn’t.  He hasn’t been listening to Rick very much of late.  Daryl rips the kit open with both hands and upturns the whole thing, letting it rain to the ground.  He’s careful with the exposed contents, laying bandages aside in a small pile - along with a sewing kit, plastic gloves, and an alcohol swab - the morphine nodule (wrapped in a plastic bubble) is tucked back inside the liner of the medic bag and returned with the rest of the supplies.  But the saline, a bulb syringe, and the clotting powder are grouped together and shunted to the left.

“Carl needs it.”  Rick protests. 

There’s a storm howling outside, a rattling of bones and slithering skin.  The house groans under the weight.  The door flinches with each strike of lightning, a rat-a-tat-tat, like the pounding of fists.

“Yeah,” Daryl agrees.  “He was treated forty-eight hours ago, the best way they knew how. So this; _this_ is gonna be for you.”

“No.  He might need it - listen to me –“ Rick’s been wanting to shout that for days now. Just listen to me, the way Daryl _used_ to listen, because this is Rick’s son at stake and there’s nothing, nothing, that matters more, so he explains it slow, hoping it might help.  “We got those supplies for Carl.”

Daryl looks up for the first time and stares Rick square in the eyes.  He hasn’t made eye contact since the fight, the two of them scuffing in the dirt like teenagers, like the day they first met, throwing their weight around with intent, aiming to hurt. 

“You smell that cesspool outside?  Huh?  Huh! The supplies aren’t going to _get_ to him.  Not unless you haul ass and make it through, anyway you can. ‘Cos’, hoss, I don’t mind sayin’, I’m done carrying your scrawny ass.”

They never finished that fight, Rick thinks bitterly. Not enough time, not the right circumstances, not the correct words to hurl at each other. “They’re weak,” he says, bluntly. “And they won’t learn unless they’re thrown into it, head-first. I ain’t risking our people for theirs. They take our advice, listen, learn; they stand on their own two feet and maybe they’ll survive this. Or they die where they fall, ignorant.” Movement, Rick thinks, migration, changing who you are and what you believe, where you choose to settle roots, _is_ life.  You can’t afford to be stagnant; you can’t afford to remain still at the centre, unchanged. 

That’s not Rick being a hard-ass.  It’s him being true to everything he’s learnt, everything he’s been exposed to since the coma.

“But I ain’t fighting every battle for them. They’ve had enough coddlin’ behind these walls.”  And maybe Jessie’s son was right to be suspicious – maybe Ron recognised the truth too, because Rick _does_ value his own people over theirs.  Every single one of them.  For Rick, there still _is_ an ‘us’ and ‘them’, and he’d sacrifice any of the Alexandrian folk to save his own.

Daryl sits back on his heels, a smear of pale skin and coiled muscle.  He shakes his head dumbly, his voice a low rasp.  “Man, the ego on you.”  He empties the saline into the syringe, his jaw set.  “You think you had it rough, those first few months? We were having picnics on the porch, Sunday lunch.  Every day, a damn _House on the Prairie_ or some other shit.  You had time to adjust, Rick.  Don’t pretend you didn’t.  And you had Lori, people to support you while you got your head wrapped around it all.”  Rick jerks at her name, feels the dull ache in his ribcage, the flare of an unexpected blow.  Daryl bites his lip, hair in his eyes, he flicks the syringe like someone who’s seen it done on television but knows hell all of why they do it.  “You know who _didn’t_ give you any time?  Shane.”

The name is swaddled in hurt, rage, and so much love Rick is drowning in it.  He can feel the blood trickling down his leg, his pants heavy with fluid, the stink of iron choking up the air and he doesn’t realise he’s spoken until the words echo in the room.  “He was right.”  God, Shane was right in so many appalling, and apparent, ways. Shane didn’t do a tenth of the things Rick has done, or been willing to do.  He misses, and hates Shane every day, for forcing his hand, for instigating this course.  “Shane was right all along,” he admits.

And that’s the way it started,didn't it?  Little disagreements that spurred into discontent, flourished into change, bred resentment. It started with the closest of brothers, inseparable, and ended in drawn blades. Rick’s been feeling an itch under his skin like a phantom memory – a limb hacked off rugged - his heart growing colder every time Daryl argued with him, because this is the way it starts.  He knew this page in history, read the script, played his part, and Rick remembers with a dull panic it’s the people who know you best, who perpetrate the deadliest wounds. Shane’s name drops like a bomb, paranoia a flame racing after it. 

Desolate, Rick tightens his grip on the colt, and forces himself to think _carlcarlcarl._

“Nah,” Daryl corrects.  “Shane was wrong…thinking it was right to kill you. Not giving you a chance in the first place – “  He trails off, awkward now that he’s discussing Rick and Shane where he hadn’t been when defending the Alexandrian’s.  “It was a dick move.”

Rick recoils; his fingers flinch away from the colt. Light-headed, his head lolls onto his shoulders, squinting in the dark to make out Daryl’s expression.

Disingenuous, Daryl adds with a frown. “Now drop those pants.”

There are things Rick has learnt since the change – they’re embedded in his skin and carved onto his skeleton – you can’t trust people.  Sometimes, like Shane, you can’t even trust your closest friends.  _People measure you by what they can take from you_ – but he’s never figured out what Daryl sees in him, what’s he’s stealing away - the parts of Rick he likes and keeps hidden, held under the vest and close to his chest. Whatever it is he coveted, whatever it was Daryl had admired, Rick hopes he has it in safekeeping, that in time, he can share the perspective with Rick and feed it back to him. There are things Rick has learnt – everything precious is hidden, under grime, dirt, sealed vaults – and kindness is an unexpected treasure, so bright it can blind. 

Ragged, he shudders in a breath and says - “What?”  Shame has him stuttering on the word, because for a moment he thought - 

“Need to irrigate the wound,” Daryl explains. “I can rip your pants open to the crotch, but man, it’s a _bitch_ fighting naked.  Take em’ off,” he shrugs, one eye fixed on the windows and doors, his tone curt.  “Let me see.”

His hands don’t fumble but Rick can’t feel his fingertips. He keeps his movements purposeful, un-belts, unzips and scoots back on his ass until he’s hobbled around the knees by the bunched up material.  His upper thigh is a mess, churned up skin and muscle, and he thinks for a moment it’s a wonder he hasn’t bled out.  Rick looks away too quick, spots dancing in his vision, and swallows dryly.

“Nasty,” Daryl observes.

“My crotch?" It's the blood loss, Rick reasons, and resolutely refuses to look down.  "That's what every guy wants to hear.” 

There’s a surprised snort before Daryl reassures him. “Everything’s still there, hoss… Can’t speak for working order though.”

The air expels from his lungs in a relieved rush. Rick lies quiet while Daryl irrigates the wound, applies the clotting powder and ties if off with a fresh bandage, wrapping it around the soft skin of the inner thigh, knuckles impersonal and so teasingly close.  He swallows and swallows again, staring at the ceiling as the window throws lumbering shadows across the high beams.  “You didn’t like my grand-dad story?” he rumbles, to break the silence.

“Just that…it’s a story.”  Daryl’s thumb rests on his skin, running along the edge of the bandage to smooth the corners down, fingers splayed where thigh meets hips, the small divot on the side of Rick’s flank warm with his touch.

“It’s the truth,” Rick protests.  He needs the distraction, he’s thinking about his leg, Carl, the number of walkers on the opposite side of the door, he’s thinking about the medical supplies in the kit bag, and at his very core, Rick is thinking about _practicalities._

“No.  Truth is it’s a _story_.  Like heaven is a _story._   Like believing we’re gonna live happily ever after is _just_ a story.  It’s nice, it’s helluva comforting even, but it’s that: make belief.  Truth is we all die – it’s gonna be painful – maybe gruesome, but we die.   Pretending to be the walking dead, so that in a few years, you can live again like a human?  Turn people away?  Shut down for the time being?” Daryl closes his eyes for a moment, brow furrowed.  “What’s the point of that?  You and I both know how this will end.  And in that sense…then today - and how we treat each other _this_ day - that’s all that matters. The only thing that matters.  Fuck your grand-daddy’s fantasy…'cos we ain’t them, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna act like them.” It’s rage flaring in Daryl’s eyes, his fingers curl on Rick’s hip, and he looks like he’s been tipped into his own kind of betrayal, sand under his feet instead of steady ground, the quicksand of words.  “Those poxy assholes outside this door – they’re gonna kill me before _I_ join their ranks willingly.”

“That wasn’t…” Rick breathes.  “That wasn’t quite what I meant.”

“Yeah,” Daryl snaps.  “Well you’re a shit story teller.”

“Lori always told them….to the kids…to Carl I mean…she was always…she was always…”

“Up,” Daryl interrupts, not unkindly. He knots one fist into Rick’s shirt and jerks him upright onto his feet.  Rick catches the belt-buckle before it can slide down to his ankles and pulls his jeans on, careful over the bulge on his thigh.  His gun is empty, and his mind keeps circling back to how quick he was to write the Alexandrian’s off, how paranoia had skewered the meaning of ‘brother’ – Shane was the only other man he had named as such and for a bleak second, he saw the same events play out all over again, except it was Daryl on the opposite side.  Daryl in the field.  Daryl with his hunting knife drawn.  Daryl who he was always fighting with lately - incessantly - and he feels sick, suddenly, for even considering it.

“You should go,” Rick says.  “Take the medicine…get it to Carl.  Please – it’s the best shot.  You’re quick and I…I’m weak.”  Funny, how he manages that sentence without irony, how Rick’s mouth curves of its own volition.  “Wounded.”  It’s Carl that matters now, more than Rick, more than anyone else, and he might be tough on the Alexandrians but Rick matches everything he asks of them.

Daryl goes still – and for a moment he looks carved from stone – immutable, or alien as a sphinx.   His expression is unchanged. 

Rick saw it the first day they met – when he told Daryl of Merle’s fate – saw it on a dark field while Dale lay at both their feet. He glimpsed the expression again when Daryl wouldn’t give up Merle in the woods, and Rick saw it aimed at himself, the naked relief and _love_ , when Joe and his party stumbled upon them on the way to Terminus.  It’s narrow eyed and a little pissed off.  It’s this side of defiant, and at its very heart, it’s an unwillingness to let go.  Set.  A decision to _not_ change. “You’re my brother.”  Daryl reminds, angrily.

And they were always two different people, coming from two vastly different viewpoints.  How Rick first applied the word to Shane and by association, it was forever laced with a threat to attack.  But Daryl associated the word with Merle first, loyal to the end, and it didn’t matter how much they fought or scuffed up the dirt - it didn’t matter how much Merle was despised or hated by the group at large - _or how angry they were at one another,_ Daryl had his back. Always.  Fighting wasn’t a treacherous decline to betrayal for Daryl, it was part and parcel, and it wasn’t even a notch on the breadth of their feeling for one another.  Merle died trying to keep his little brother safe.  Daryl followed him to the bloody end.

“Get up,” Daryl says, and that rage is simmering under his skin again,  “Get on yer damn feet, Rick.”  He has a shoulder under Rick’s armpit before he can process the sentence.  Daryl shoves the hunting knife into Rick’s grip, and grabs his crossbow with his spare hand.  Rick takes a breath and grabs the med-kit, shouldering the bag, and holsters the empty colt at his side.

 _You should leave me,_ Rick wants to say, but he knows how that will go.  _What do you see,_ he wants to ask, but he’s not brave enough to hear the answer yet. Instead, he takes the moment to steady his breathing, to think _Carl_ and let it drive him onward.

Daryl sets his eyes on the door, his voice a distant roll of thunder.  “You want your boy to get those meds in your backpack, Rick?  Then it’s a simple trick. Stay alive.”

 “I believe in happily ever afters,” Rick murmurs, inaudible, under the growing wail. 

He believes in a world without walkers - some day maybe - because Rick _has_ to.  He believes in living again _fully_ after the desolation of loss, and maybe that’s someone’s idea of heaven, or someone’s idea of a tall-tale, but it’s who Rick is. Some day, he hopes, he can live like Daryl, unfettered and wild, in the moment, and ask him what it is he has hidden away - the things he sees in Rick that Rick can’t see in himself - and be still enough, centred enough, to hear the truth of it.  Outside, the moans harmonise with the screaming wind.

Daryl kicks the door open.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the most recent trailers - no actual spoilers - just speculation and five years of watching the show. Story's in its rough because I'm a lazy writer - a lazy, lazy writer - unbeta-read and all errors are (wincingly) mine.


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